Homeopathy is surprising​but scientifically valid

NHS to ban homeopathy

The NHS ban on homeopathy is unjustified and unscientificThe statements in the media that homeopathy is just the placebo effect are wrong, and internet searches easily reveal this. The evidence in favour of homeopathy is out there and is clear. Homeopathy is more than the placebo effect, and five out of six systemic reviews of the evidence show this. The Homeopathy Research Institute explains what is happening to homeopathy with clarity and detail.Sign the UK Parliamentary Petition to keep homeopathy available on the NHS here.​Here are four points to bear in mind when thinking about homeopathy.

Homeopathy works and there is plenty of good evidence that it works. Six systematic reviews of this evidence have been done, and five of them show that homeopathy is more than the placebo effect. The one review that comes to the opposite conclusion is flawed and has been criticised by independent scientists for its poor design and its lack of transparency.

Despite its scientific failings, this flawed study and other similar ones have been used in government reports in this country and Australia to justify banning homeopathy. There is no scientific basis for these decisions, and they should be reversed.

There is now a media bias against homeopathy. For example there used to be headlines like this one in the Daily Telegraph in October 2004 “Heath Service Lets Complementary Medicine Lend A Healing Hand At Last.” There was a double page spread of positive news about homeopathy and other therapies. But since 2005 the coverage in the media has been almost entirely negative. The media are listening to the invalid arguments put forward in the name of science by critics of homeopathy, not to the science itself. This is having a detrimental affect on public perception of homeopathy. An end to media prejudice is needed.

An explanation for potentisation (the homeopathic method of diluting medicines and making them more powerful) is emerging from the scientific understanding of water. (There is one example of many relevant scientific studies here)The latest research on water shows that its molecular structure can be affected by what is dissolved in it, and that this structure has biological effects. Nobel prize-winning scientist Luc Montagnier says “High dilutions of something are not nothing.” Water does have a memory, and this explains how homeopathy works.

This NHS decision shows that homeopathy is facing a problem which links science, the media and politics. Science, or rather pseudoscience, comes up with studies such as the one by Shang et al. in 2005. The media present this to the public, and when support for homeopathy is undermined, political decisions against homeopathy can be made. This is the process that is undermining homeopathy. Before 2005 homeopathy had been gaining in popularity, and still is in some countries. It is being attacked at a time when it is needed more than ever to help deal with the world's health problems

Science is the battle ground supporters of homeopathy are fighting on, and we can win the argument, since the real science is on our side.We need to formulate a powerful core statement such as the four points above, to counter the invalid criticisms of homeopathy, and keep repeating it. We can show in the media the failings of the so-called science the criticisms are based on. Then political decisions like the recent one about banning homeopathy on the NHS will be more difficult to make.